Archive - Apr 28, 2015

It appears the banana-stand guy has more than a few friends...

The European Parliament continues to surprise as the parliamentarians got to vote on raising their own paycheck (always a good idea). The best thing about the story is that not everyone voted in favor; but most did... and the numbers are stunning. Given all their failures over the last decade, why would anyone, any country, want to have these people take their decisions for them?

Earlier today the US Census released its latest quarterly data, which confirmed that for what is left of America's middle class, owning a home has become virtually impossible, with the homeownership rate tumbling from 64.0% to 63.7%, which is tied for the lowest historic print since the first quarter of 1986, with the only difference that then the trendline was higher. Now, as can be seen on the chart below, it isn't. At this rate, by the end of the 2015 and certainly by the end of Obama's second term, the US homeownership rate will drop to the lowest in modern US history.

President Obama and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe are set to explain how great the TPP is and how the renewed military assertiveness is 'peaceful'...

"The Clinton Foundation’s finances are so messy that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits last month... It seems like the Clinton Foundation operates as a slush fund for the Clintons."

US equity markets have v-shape-recovered this morning after plunging on a combination of good housing data (that's bad news), weak manufacturing data and dismal consumer confidence which then was accelerated as Iran headlines smashed oil higher. All that was quickly forgiven and stocks have soared... Small Caps are now 1.5% as 'investors' panic-buy back to the highs of the day... VIX was monkey-hammered from 14.25 to back under 13.

Those curious can track the ship alleged confiscated ship, the Tigris, in real time courtesy of Marine Traffic.

It took 25 days to recover, and 2 days to lose all the exuberance that was 'well-deserved' and M&A-boom-driven, according to analysts. With a drop of over 10%, Biotechs are officialy in 'correction' and falling on heavy volume...

Update 2: Curiously, while we were confident Iran would deny the report first, it was in fact the US: US NAVY DENIES CONFRONTATION WITH IRANIAN MILITARY: CNBC

Update: WHITE HOUSE REFERS COMMENT ON IRAN SHIP CAPTURE TO DEFENSE DEPT

Moments ago according to Saudi-owned Arabiya news, Iranian forces have seized a US cargo ship, which has some 34 American sailors, which they have taken to the port of Bandar Abbas. Iran's Farsnews confirms the Arabiya report, stating that "a US cargo ship with 34 crew was stopped and seized by Iranian Navy warships on Tuesday. The Iranian Navy has confiscated the American trade vessel with all its 34 crew for trespassing on Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf."

For the second month in a row, Richmond Fed printed below 0 - which has prompted renewed QE from the Fed, or a recession, in the past. At -3 (worse than the -2 expected), this is the 5th miss of the last 6 months. Under the surface, components improved but New Order Volume, capacity utilization, and shipments all printed a negative contractionary level. While the data bounced, it remains a weak bounce off 2 year lows.

Stunned... Despite soaring stock prices and low gas prices, Consumer Confidence tumbled to 95.2 (against expectations of a jump to 102.2) to its lowest sicne 2014. This is the biggest miss since June 2010. We are going to need more oil price deflation and stock price reflation (and less looting). New England and West South Central Regions saw the biggest plunge in confidence and despite the plunge in current situation, future expectations (aka "hope") jumped from 90 to 96.

It took a while, but after going nowhere for the past year and in fact declining significantly on a Year over Year basis, the second tech bubble has once again managed to "trickle down" into the San Francisco housing market, which in the month of February saw the west coast tech mecca as the sterling outperformer of all US real estate markets according to the latest Case Shiller data. On the other end: Cleveland was down -1.0%.

After two efforts at spiking momentum (last night and this morning), AAPL shares are now down over 1% from the close and falling on very heavy volume. As Nanex's Eric Hunsader notes, AAPL has overtaken the e-mini S&P futures contract this morning as the most heavily traded security in US markets. How long before the calls to remove 'the highly volatile' stock from The Dow?

"It is unbearable for Greeks to watch the drama of the negotiations rendered (either simplistically or maliciously) as though it were a western, in which the others are Good and Greece is both the Bad and the Ugly. If this perception is actually reflective of the real situation, irrespective of whether it’s being played up a bit for the sake of the drama, then there is a very real fear that a union which solves its differences in High Noon style is no longer a union."